Is H1N1 Growing More Lethal?

DESPITE the declaration of a worldwide pandemic (Phase Six) by the World Health Organization, H1N1 (Swine Flu) has faded into the background of most cable news cycles. Though its popularity as a lead story may have waned, the influenza bug has certainly not taken a holiday.

Dr. Henry Niman of Recombinomics.com fears that H1N1 may have mutated into a much more efficient and lethal strain. He cites two cases from Buffalo, New York as his evidence. In Niman’s Recombinomics.com June 22, 2009 commentary, he states the following:

His mother said complications from swine flu included pneumonia and MRSA.

She said his kidneys were failing, and he was being kept alive by machines.
A nine-year-old girl is also at Women and Children’s Hospital with the H1N1 virus.
She’s a fourth grader at Charles Drew Science Magnet School 59’s museum campus.

The above comments describe two students of magnet schools in Buffalo, NY that are a mile apart (see updated map). Both students were on life support yesterday, and the middle school student (15) died after life support was withdrawn. The elementary school student (9F) remains on life support. The clustering of two critically ill students raises concerns about the emergence of a more lethal strain of Pandemic H1N1.

Emergency room visits with influenza symptoms are on the decline, but that is no reason to relax. Public ‘panic’ over the initial round of reporting has died down, so many people may not be as sensitive to symptoms. Also, summer is not a traditional ‘flu season’.

Niman believes that this fall could see a resurgence of infections, and that those cases could well be with the more virulent strain now brewing unnoticed in pockets of the world.

Those ‘pockets’ include Australia and other southern hemisphere regions, who are now in fall and winter seasons. A Reuters report from yesterday quotes Joerg Hacker (head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases) as saying:

It’s possible the virus has mutated. In autumn the mutated form could spread to the northern hemisphere and back to Germany.”

The Spanish Flu began in the spring of 1918 as a relatively mild infectious agent. However, by fall the virus has mutated into a deadly monster that eventually infected one out of four in the US and one out of five globally, claiming the lives of as many as 20 million people in the span of just a few months.

Some may think the ‘pandemic’ is all about scaring people into taking immunizations. Certainly, that may be part of it. But the Pale Rider of Revelation is saddled up, and he will ride whether you and I are ready or not. Do you know Christ?